There will be stories about the Super Bowl 2013 players and coaches during CBS’ Sunday (Feb. 3) pregame show, and even a feature piece about the Upper 9th Ward Musicians Village recovery project. The most consequential segment in the four-hour “The Super Bowl Today,” airing at 1 p.m. Sunday (Feb. 3) on WWL-TV, will likely prove the least appealing to viewers getting their game faces full.

It’s a planned segment about player safety and that issue’s impact on the league’s future. The NFL’s head-injury headache has roiled under the week-long New Orleans celebration of the NFL, its media partners and their advertisers.

Junior Seau’s family’s wrongful-death lawsuit against the league and a massive class-action lawsuit by former players filed against the league and its insurers have sparked speculation that professional football’s business model could be threatened. A Thursday panel in the Super Bowl Media Center addressed progress on head-injury science. Football fans in the Super Bowl’s host city, many working to stage the frothy week-long prelude to the game, lost a season to sanctions directly tied to the injury issue and the owners’ potential long-term liability.

President Barack Obama set one of the talking points for the week when New Republic writers Franklin Foer and Chris Hughes, between questions about executive power and Syria, asked him about football safety.

“I'm a big football fan, but I have to tell you if I had a son, I'd have to think long and hard before I let him play football,” Obama said.

One of the elements that makes pro football such a premium TV product – its violence, delivered to living rooms in slow-motion high definition – is on trial.

“I’m a firm believer in assumption of risk,” Shannon Sharpe said. “I knew what I signed up for. Football has afforded me a life I would not have if I had not played in the National Football League. I look at the life I was able to give my grandmother for the last 20-plus years of her life – 50 concussions doesn’t change my mind.”

Neither does Oval Office concern.

“In every locker room ever since I was in high school, the coach would always say, ‘Do your job,’” Sharpe said. “I would like to think the commissioner and the National Football League and the NFLPA can do this. I want my president to worry about unemployment. I want him to worry about foreign policy. I went to worry about Medicaid and Medicare. I don't want him dealing with this.”

A Hall of Famer for his career with the Denver Broncos and Baltimore Ravens, Sharpe and the other “The NFL Today” analysts with backgrounds in the game can play a unique explanatory role as the player-safety story advances, as it almost surely will. It’s not Xs and Os or performance grades. It’s bigger than that.

In a group interview Tuesday (Jan. 29), Sharpe, Boomer Esiason, Dan Marino and Bill Cowher – panelists for “The NFL Today” during the season and Sunday’s “The Super Bowl Today” – said they believe the steps the league is taking to ensure player safety are sound.

“This commissioner, in my estimation, has been more transparent than any commissioner in any sport about the problems the sport faces,” said Esiason, a former Pro Bowl quarterback who played for the Cincinnati Bengals, New York Jets and Arizona Cardinals. “Whether it’s the bounty issue in New Orleans, whether it be the concussion issue, whether it be the drug issue, whether it be the behavior issue – he has put his foot down so many different times. It's no wonder that over 60 percent of the players don't like (him). Who really cares what they think?

“I suffered concussions. Three were diagnosed. Five, six or seven were undiagnosed. I went back and played. Under today's guidelines, there’s no way I would've gone back on the field.

“The fact is that the game is evolving. The commissioner has done an unbelievable job in making the rules to reflect the evolution of the game and the problems of the players of the past.”

Cowher, a Super Bowl winner as coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers and a journeyman NFL linebacker before that, said techniques are being taught at the schoolboy level now that will eventually make the game safer at the college and pro levels. Head-injury protocols have been refined and toughened at all levels.

“Obviously, we are making attempts right now to transition into a safer game,” Cowher said. “Whether it's with the protocol that is being used in regards to concussions, whether it's the way we are officiating the game or the way we’re trying to teach the game -- we’re very aware that there is an issue out there, because public perception is reality. I think you have to address that. From my standpoint, I think (that raising awareness) at the youth level will have a trickle down effect on what we're doing at the professional level.

“You talk about our role. I think our role is, I just don't want parents turning on the TV on Sunday to watch the game and saying, ‘Wow, I didn't realize this game was that dangerous,’ and not let their kid play, and the kid missing the opportunity of maybe getting a college education.

“To me, it's the parents who are making the decisions for the kids and maybe denying them because their perception is that it’s a dangerous sport. Our role is to make sure the parents don't make these decisions.

“I think there are so many great elements of the (youth level) game in terms of the camaraderie, the unselfishness, commitment, discipline. There's something to be said about being a part of 11 guys trying to work together. There's a teamwork element that I don’t think any other sport has. You have faces in other sports. In football, you have a helmet.”

Added Esiason: “I'd much rather have (my son) outside running around than sitting on his ass at home playing video games. That's another problem, going to the whole social media and the texting and all the other crap. Go outside. Get outside and be part of something. The virtues of football, as coach said, far outweigh the risks. It’s critical thinking. It’s dealing with failure. It’s the structure of being part of a team. It’s showing up on time.”

Added Sharpe: “You know what I think is really funny? I listen to guys making $30 million or $40 million for the National Football League say, ‘I won't let my kid play.’ I probably wouldn’t have played either if my mom and dad had $40 million.”

A first-ballot Hall of Famer for his years quarterbacking the Miami Dolphins, Dan Marino said he has faith that improved equipment will reduce the likelihood of head injuries, which also will be diagnosed more effectively once they do occur.

“There's all this technology that's out there that's going to come along,” he said. “In time, it’s going to give us a better indication of exactly when a kid should play and when he shouldn't play, the protocol. In some ways, because football is so popular it gets somewhat of a bad rap. You have soccer where guys are getting their heads kicked in, lacrosse the same way. You’ve got hockey. You’ve got a lot of other sports that have the same issues, but the NFL is the one taking the big hit.”

Esiason: “Skiing?”

Cowher: “The X-Games?”

Sharpe: “I don't envy the commissioner’s job. We have to understand that throughout history, change has been very unpopular. They say, ‘They’re making the National Football League soft.’ Five or 10 years from now, we'll look back and say, ‘You know what? The commissioner had to do that. It was very unpopular at the time, but these are the rules that needed to be implemented to make sure we moved forward with our game.’”